Microsoft Retires Internet Explorer

Tech giant, Microsoft, on Wednesday announced it has completely shut down its iconic browser, Internet Explorer.

This development came a year after the company said its Internet Explorer 11 Windows 10 desktop app would be retired in favour of Microsoft Edge.

The tech giant had in May last year announced it will discontinue the browser beginning from June 15, 2022, and encouraged users to switch to Microsoft Edge.

“After 25+ years of helping people use and experience the web, Internet Explorer (IE) is officially retired and out of support as of today, June 15, 2022. To many millions of you, thank you for using Internet Explorer as your gateway to the internet,” the company said in a blog post.

Long history

Internet Explorer (IE) was a free web browser that allows users to view web pages on the internet.

In 1995 Microsoft released Internet Explorer 1.0 as an add-on to the Windows 95 operating system.

Later, Microsoft’s internet browser was made available to everyone as a part of the package with the later versions of Windows.

At its peak in the early 2000s, Internet Explorer controlled 95 per cent of the web browsing market, according to BBC.

Internet Explorer later witnessed a major downfall as it failed to keep up with the other browsers.

The last version of IE11 was released in 2013. With the release of Windows 10 in 2015, it was replaced by Microsoft Edge as a default browser in Windows.

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